: Study Questions: Week Two

Trouble in Dreamland.

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

1. What sort of mood is established in the opening of ET? Why is the identity of the hunters not disclosed?

2. At the very beginning of the film ET and Elliott (Henry Thomas) are identified as doubles. Their lives are tied together physically in the hospital sequence. What qualities do the two have in common? How is E.T.'s separation from his "home" similar to factors in Elliott's life in suburbia? What might be the connection between the arrival of ET and Eliott's recent loss of his father?

3. How does Spielberg's emphasis on the details of commercial popular culture (PEZ guns, familiar dolls, Reese's Pieces, etc.) contribute to the film's believability? Will audiences 50 years form now understand them in the same way? Why? Why not?

4. For over half the films, we see the hunters only at waist-high level? Why, do you think, Spielberg chose this perspective?

5. How many references to space travel in popular culture can you find in the film? Consider the comics ET reads, television movies, Halloween costumes. What seems to be the significance of calling attention to these images? What is the significance of the flying bicycle reference to The Wizard of Oz (1939)?

6. Why does Elliott save the frogs in biology class? How is this scene related to the film's main plot?

7. Elliott's mother (Dee Wallace) reads Peter Pan to Gertie (Drew Barrymore). What do the children in Peter Pan have in common with the Elliott's family and friends? Why does Spielberg make this comparison? Remember Spielberg was sufficiently impressed with Peter Pan to make a version himself (Hook, 1991).

8. Why do the hunters appear in space suits and protective gear that hides their identities and makes them appear unhuman? What does this method of introducing them say about the federal government? What other films by Spielberg make the same statement?

9. Bruno Bettelheim, the famous child psychiatrist, wrote in his book on fairy tales that they focussed on children who managed to survive the threat posed by gigantic adults (as a child sees them). And by reading fairy tales, children are encouraged to negotiate their own way to adulthood. How could you describe ET as a fairy tale? Why, do you think, Spielberg identifies so strongly with his child characters?

10. How is Elliott changed by his encounter with ET?

11. What does the film's prologue (hunting for the head in South America) do to define for us the nature of the hero, his profession, and the promise of the action to come?

12. What specific contrasts are drawn between Indiana Jones in a university classroom and Indiana Jones in the field? what other super heroes have similar dual personalities? Think of comic books, comic strips, and movie cartoons.

13. Why do you think Spielberg chose Nazis as Indiana's adversaries? How is the Nazi leader (Wolf Kahler) --who eventually loses his head-- typical of Nazis seen in countless American films of the 1940s and 1950s?

14. What is the significance of the "Ark of the Covenant"? Does it suggest that the film has a serious religious theme; or, is it just something dramatic to allow Spielberg to provide lots of action? What makes you decide?

15. What is the significance of introducing Marion Ravenswood (Karen Allen) drinking in her bar in Nepal? How does this scene foreshadow a similar one later in the film?

16. What is the significance of the French archeologist, Belloc (Paul Freeman)? Why does he say to Indiana, "I'm just a shadowy reflection of you"?

17. Are the action sequences exciting or rather comic? Are they believable? Why? Why not?

18. Why does Spielberg place so much emphasis on glamorous machines -- cars, ships and u-boats, airplanes?

19. What sort of force is contained in the Ark? What does it represent?

20. What is the thematic significance of the final shot in the underground warehouse full of Top Secret crates? How does it reveal Spielberg's treatment of governmental authority?